Android MiniClient v1.2.0 - Released

[dotheDVDeed]

I'm getting strange settings on my Amazon Fire Notepad 5th Generation.

Vertical, the Native UI Resolution is 600 x 976

Horizontal, the Native UI Resolution is 1024 x 552

Is this correct? I thought it should be 1024 x 600?

I'm getting interlacing problems with MPEG playback.

With my Nexus 5, I have consistent numbers in my Resolution and I don't see this problem. (1080x1776 & 1776x1080)

[Fuzzy]

It looks like the notepad has a 1024x600 panel, but reserves 48 pixels for soft buttons. So, when in vertical, it is chopping the 48 out of the 1024 dimension (leaving 600x976), and when horizontal, it is chopping the 48 out of the 600 dimension (leaving 1024x552). That all seems correct.

[dotheDVDeed]

Sounds right. But my Nexus 5 doesn't do the same.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by dotheDVDeed

Sounds right. But my Nexus 5 doesn't do the same.

That's entirely possible.. every android device is different, some use soft buttons that are using the normal graphics display, some have physical buttons, some have soft buttons that are separate from the display, some even have a completely separate screen that is used for other things - As long as the system tells the apps the right size that they have available, it should be all good.

Were you seeing a problem with how the miniclient was drawing on them or anything?

[dotheDVDeed]

I'm seeing interlacing problems on the Amazon Fire tablet. I also tried it out on a first gen. Amazon Fire stick, which was a complete no-go--the interface was painfully slow. It may be both CPUs are just not up to snuff.

I've been trying to gain some knowledge and experience with Android before my Google Nexus Player Console is delivered from eBay. My only success has been with Nexus 5 phone so far.

[Taddeusz]

I bought a Mi Box from Walmart a couple weeks ago and have been playing around with the SageTV Client. Works really well but on a 65" 1080p TV the resolution of the default STV interface images really shows. I never noticed it before possibly because of the lower resolution of the extender UI and because it appears that the extenders use interpolation to render the images. Might be time to consider increasing the resolution of the UI images.

In the mean time is it possible to render the images with interpolation to smooth the "jaggies"?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I bought a Mi Box from Walmart a couple weeks ago and have been playing around with the SageTV Client. Works really well but on a 65" 1080p TV the resolution of the default STV interface images really shows. I never noticed it before possibly because of the lower resolution of the extender UI and because it appears that the extenders use interpolation to render the images. Might be time to consider increasing the resolution of the UI images.

In the mean time is it possible to render the images with interpolation to smooth the "jaggies"?

What images are you seeing a problem on? I'll be honest, I have not noticed a problem.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

What images are you seeing a problem on? I'll be honest, I have not noticed a problem.

Strange, just loaded up my Placeshifter here at work on my 1080p monitor and I'm not seeing the same problem. The Mi Box shows blockiness on all UI element images. Really noticeable on the "HD", "CS", etc. icons. Also really noticeable on the clock background on the main screen.

Not sure why the other UI elements are showing such blockiness but I know now why the clock background looks so bad. It's template image is only 18 pixels high. I don't really think that's enough resolution.

[bialio]

This does bring up an interesting point, especially if you are not using the default UI.

If your environment has a mix of HD300 and android clients, you end up with fan art scaled/cached in non optimal ways on your Server. For instance, if you trigger the pre-scaling/caching from an HD300, which has a UI running at 720p best case, then you have a bunch of images cached on the Server that fit the 720p resolution.

Then on your android machines, assuming they are running at 1080p, everything ends up getting scaled up to 150%.

Since scaling down is always going to look better than up, if you have a mixed environment it's a good idea to find your cache, clear it out, and rebuild it from the android client.

btl.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by bialio

This does bring up an interesting point, especially if you are not using the default UI.

If your environment has a mix of HD300 and android clients, you end up with fan art scaled/cached in non optimal ways on your Server. For instance, if you trigger the pre-scaling/caching from an HD300, which has a UI running at 720p best case, then you have a bunch of images cached on the Server that fit the 720p resolution.

Then on your android machines, assuming they are running at 1080p, everything ends up getting scaled up to 150%.

Since scaling down is always going to look better than up, if you have a mixed environment it's a good idea to find your cache, clear it out, and rebuild it from the android client.

btl.

Is the Windows Placeshifter/Miniclient also affected by the cache? I'm not seeing that problem using Placeshifter.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Is the Windows Placeshifter/Miniclient also affected by the cache? I'm not seeing that problem using Placeshifter.

The cache he's talking about is for fanart - which would not cause issues in the HD and CS icons you are describing.

[bialio]

I've never really used Placeshifter, so I'm not 100% clear on what it does. I think it's a miniclient just like the hardware extenders - in which case it'll use the cache on the server.

However, do note that there isn't much (if any) caching going on in the default STV. You have to add in Phoenix or Diamond or Gemstone to get the caching. And it's almost only for fan art - the icons and other affordances you see through out the UI are not cached...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Strange, just loaded up my Placeshifter here at work on my 1080p monitor and I'm not seeing the same problem. The Mi Box shows blockiness on all UI element images. Really noticeable on the "HD", "CS", etc. icons. Also really noticeable on the clock background on the main screen.

Not sure why the other UI elements are showing such blockiness but I know now why the clock background looks so bad. It's template image is only 18 pixels high. I don't really think that's enough resolution.

In the miniclient's settings, do you have Native resolution disabled by chance? This will run the app at 1/2 resolution.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

In the miniclient's settings, do you have Native resolution disabled by chance? This will run the app at 1/2 resolution.

I will double check this evening but I was looking through the settings last night and I'm pretty sure native resolution is enabled. All the text is being rendered at 1080p.

[Taddeusz]

Ok, I've got a folder on my OneDrive with some images shared here:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AobWMSKCekcq1i2Jfv39ZA9ajkaG

I know it's difficult to tell with the icons but if you look at the Favorite "F" icon you can see the circle is a little jagged. Even at the 720p of the HD300 it doesn't show the same artifacts. Also notice the weather and clock backgrounds are interpolated on the HD300 but not on Android.

I really think the problem with the visual quality of the Android Miniclient is that the images aren't being interpolated like they are on the extenders.

On a side note I realized the one problem I do have with the Mi Box is that I can't seem to get it to output Dolby Digital audio through HDMI. If I select "Auto" it chooses SPDIF passthrough. The other options are PCM, HDMI, and SPDIF. I get sound when either PCM or HDMI are selected but only ever get PCM from either one. The way it's set up is that the Mi Box is going into the TV, then the TV has an SPDIF that goes to the receiver.

[rickgillyon]

I see those jagged edges on the miniclient too.

Edit: much smoother on the windows client.

[stuckless]

I could be the how the scaling is done. The SageTV placeshifter (and likely windows client), probably sets a sets a ui size of 1280x720 and then uses OpenGL to upscale to the physical screen size. The HD300 likely does something similar but actually lets the TV do the scaling.

The Android MiniClient will advertise itself as the native UI size. In this mode the text should look sharper, but some of the icons because they are designed for older smallers UI might look jagged. it is likely that you might get better looking icons if you set the contiguration to use half native resulation, but, I suspect that the text will look rough.

I don't recommend using the half native resolution (it should be pulled out)... since video playback, some overlays, and video preview may not work correctly.

There a couple things that I can do...
1. look at what open scaling features I'm using when scaling each of the icons, and find the best set of parameters to get the smoothest scaling.
2. implement a fixed UI mode (ie, something like half native) and let opengl scale the view instead of each image.

or we could look at upgrading the icons and replace them with 1080p versions.

[Fuzzy]

I have not dug too deep into it, but I did notice that my mi box, which is set to 720p in the android tv settings, still reports 1920x1080 as the native size in the miniclient. Not really sure what the issue is here, but that at least doens't seem right.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I have not dug too deep into it, but I did notice that my mi box, which is set to 720p in the android tv settings, still reports 1920x1080 as the native size in the miniclient. Not really sure what the issue is here, but that at least doens't seem right.

No it doesn't, but I'm wondering if it's the different between the output resolution and the UI resolution. ie, Android might be returning 1920x1080p when asked for it's UI size, but then downscaling that to 720p as per the output settings.

[Fuzzy]

Maybe. Like I said, I didn't dig too far. If that is the case, it would be nice to be able to override the miniclient resolution, instead of the 'brute force' of going to half of reported.